The world's oldest working computer is fired

With smaller, thinner, lighter equipment, but now it seems crazy to think that a computer, a mean size of the room is the main mechanism for the government to use. However, this is a computer 61 years ago.

Now, visitors can see a hardware designer doing when they created what is currently the world's oldest working digital computer - Wolverhampton Harwell of, or WITCH calculation teaching instrument . After more than a century and a half old equipment has been restored and restart at his home in Buckinghamshire, the British National Museum.

"1951 the Harwell decatron may have one of more than a dozen computers in the world, and since then, it has led a charmed life unscathed, and the recycling or destruction of their contemporaries." trustee of the Museum Kevin Murrell said in a statement.

Work began three years ago to restore WITCH, this is the first use of atomic research in 1951. Decatron inflatable tubes, each held a single digital telephone switching relays and hundreds of computers running on memory. The tape is used for both the input data and storing the machine's output.

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While on display in the museum, one can see the nearly 3-ton machine lights flash, the rattle of the printer. The witch's design is based on the reliability rather than speed. This is in order to solve at substantially the same speed as a human mathematicians use mechanical calculator, and may be several consecutive 2011 No error algorithm, according to the museum.

"To see it in action is a computer - that is the machine impossible to watch the inner workings of," Murrell said.

This machine is not the oldest electronic computing devices, but is considered to be the first modern computer is still able to work. WITCH is on display at the museum next to the giant Mark II, which is the world's first electronic computer.